West Indies RL?

I've watched the Jamaicans progress over the last few years, and notice that T&T are an observer at the RLEF. Why do they not just form a West Indies RL for rlwc qualification to get all the best talent in one team. Barbados were involved in the 7s at the Commonwealths and think of the heritage players they could call on! Bailey, McGillvary, Pryces etc.

I've watched the Jamaicans progress over the last few years, and notice that T&T are an observer at the RLEF. Why do they not just form a West Indies RL for rlwc qualification to get all the best talent in one team. Barbados were involved in the 7s at the Commonwealths and think of the heritage players they could call on! Bailey, McGillvary, Pryces etc.

Jamaica can help the other WI countries with their recent experience of starting up from scratch, and they will also get the benefit of local competition.

A combined Windies team works for cricket, but other sports haven't taken up the idea.

Between the optimist & the pessimist
The difference is quite droll:
The optimist sees the doughnut,
The pessimist sees the hole.

I think the question is fair, as sports teams often vary their borders.

The answer because that what makes the most sense to the people on the ground.

As to why it makes the most sense to the people on the ground, the answer is we do not know. We can guess a few reasons, perhaps without cricket's tradition there is no feeling of belonging to West Indies. Perhaps, if everything is centred around Jamaica for now, we might as well call it that. Perhaps having separate nations give more chance to using international teams as a promotional tool.

From working with Dane in the early days of the WIRLF and then the JRLA, the main reason why the focus moved from West Indies to Jamaica was just based upon the level of time people had to invest in the project.

The original approach was to create the West Indies team to help establish a brand which would then be used as the vehicle to get into the Caribbean with the hope of then creating domestic leagues off the back of. This concept was expected to take a number of years, and naturally was the main focus, however when of course people on the ground in Jamaica popped up willing to create a league there naturally the focus shifted from the West Indies team to Jamaica.

Dane rightfully made the right call based upon the finite time, resources and money available and I think the results are there to see today.

Honestly based upon the way it has happened, I think it would be unfair now to expect Jamaica to go under a West Indies brand unless they initiated the move.